It’s a convention of theatre-going that most productions offer an interval break – a chance for the audience to stretch their legs, grab a drink or snack, or head to the loo. But in opera, a handful of composers have eschewed intervals in favour of unbroken drama. Richard Strauss’s Salome and Elektra, Berg’s Wozzeck, and Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle are all masterpieces that benefit from the intensity of an interval-free experience, as we follow the character from rise to terrible fall without remission.

What about Der fliegende Holländer, currently on stage at Covent Garden? Today the opera is commonly performed without break – another crucible for characters and audiences. But that wasn’t the case in Wagner’s time. The intervals were first removed only in 1901, when for a production at Bayreuth Wagner’s widow Cosima decided to return to what she understood as Wagner’s ‘original conception’. Are we right to follow suit? Or is Cosima’s alteration artificial and needlessly-taxing?

Say you do have intervals – should it be one or two? Probably the most common opera structure is in three acts, so two intervals – but does this make the whole show too long? Or does it help to have these points of reflection? Does La traviata need two intervals, or is it better with one or none at all?

The crucial thing is that intervals completely alter the pace, and therefore experience, of a work. Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon rethought the structure for his 2011 ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and introduced a second interval for its first revival in 2012. For most it was a good move, lightening the first act and making the ballet more accessible for a young audience.

And all this is before you even get to the challenges of a ballet mixed programme – having a 30-minute interval between each work can sometimes mean you get more interval than ballet in your evening. Perhaps, though, it is the case that we need to take a break between works that are often very different.

We asked our Twitter followers for their thoughts - here's a selection:

@RoyalOperaHouse Don't make me sit for longer than 90 mins without a break. Ideally every hour. Don't care what the composer wanted.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss, we've published a post a week offering a closer look at the composer and his work.

Our A-Z of Richard Strauss has examined - among other subjects - the debate over his Nazi sympathies, why he relished writing for sopranos but was less than generous to tenors, and the sneaky inclusion of yodelling in his operas. It was written by author and musicologist Gavin Plumley, formerly the blogger behind Entartete Musik.

The Austrian director Max Reinhardt (1873–1943) transformed theatre. Before him, the director's role was mostly seen as administrative. But Reinhardt's spectacular, theatrical productions established once and for all the director as an artistic figure, whose vision could guide every aspect of the production. It's no surprise, then, that Reinhardt regularly collaborated with the most popular living German composer of his day – Richard Strauss.

Reinhardt was born Maximilian Goldmann to a Jewish family in Baden. After becoming renowned as an actor in Salzburg, in 1894 he was invited to join Otto Brahm's company at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. He soon tired of the strict naturalism of Brahm's productions, moaning of having to 'stick on a beard… and eat noodles and sauerkraut on stage every night'. By 1902 he was planning the season of the Kleines Theater, and it was here he made his directorial debut with a production of Oscar Wilde's Salomé.

The show made Reinhardt's name; less than a year later he was a wealthy man, with nearly fifty plays under his belt. Salomé also had a huge impact on Strauss when he saw it in 1903: his 1905 adaptation would be his first great operatic success.

But another 1903 Reinhardt production arguably had an even greater impact. For his production of Elektra (which, like Salomé, also starred the hugely influential actress Gertrud Eysoldt in the title role), Reinhardt used an innovative translation of Sophocles' play by the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Strauss was so struck by the subtle and powerful script that once Salome was out of the way he contacted Hofmannsthal about collaborating on an opera. The resulting 1909 Elektra was the first fruit of one of the most significant artistic partnerships of the 20th century.

For their first original collaboration – the work that would eventually become Der Rosenkavalier – Strauss and Hofmannsthal wanted the best of the best. Unfortunately their plan to invite Reinhardt to direct proved distinctly unpolitic with the Dresden opera house hosting the premiere. But after the first disastrous run-through under the house director, Reinhardt tactfully took control, working on stage and – most importantly – closely developing nuanced characters with the singer-actors.

Reinhardt was everything Strauss and Hofmannsthal had hoped for; Hofmannsthal wrote of the final rehearsal, 'when we rehearsed with the orchestra and the colorful settings on stage, only Reinhardt quietly moved around, and everything started becoming more and more real… something that I have never before seen on stage'. Der Rosenkavalier was an instant success from the moment of its premiere on 26 January 1911.

To express their gratitude to Reinhardt, Strauss and Hofmannsthal wanted their next work to be a gala celebration of words and music, bringing together Reinhardt's renowned Berlin company with leading opera singers. They hit upon the idea of presenting Hofmannsthal's new translation of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme with a closing musical divertissement. But as Strauss and Hofmannsthal warmed to their project its original modest dimensions were thrown out the window. Though the lengthy 1912 premiere was appreciatively received, their reworked fully-operatic version of 1916, Ariadne auf Naxos, was much more successful.

Reinhardt would not work on any further Strauss premieres, but in the second decade of the 20th century he led a host of leading artistic figures in Germany, including Strauss and Hofmannsthal, to establish the Salzburg Festival. Reinhardt was a crucial figure from the first festival in 1920 until his enforced exile to the USA in 1937, with his production of Hofmannsthal's Jedermann in the city's Domplatz now a traditional event of the annual festival.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Reinhardt had had earlier success in the US with a 1934 extravaganza production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl, later made into a film starring James Cagney and Mickey Rooney. He never found the same success again, however, and lived his final years in considerably lessened fortunes. But his legacy continues, in the thriving German theatre scene and the four Strauss operas that might not have come about were it not for his extraordinary, galvanizing productions.

Ariadne auf Naxos runs from 25 June–13 July 2014. Tickets are still available. The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from Hélène and Jean Peters, Hamish and Sophie Forsyth and The Maestro’s Circle. Antonio Pappano conducts the cast and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in concert at the Symphony Hall, Birmingham, on 6 July 2014. Tickets are still available.

No one could write for the soprano voice like Richard Strauss. From the songs he wrote for his wife, soprano Pauline de Ahna, through to the exquisite Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs), Strauss's soprano music is technically challenging for the singer but offers endless delights for the listener. Here's a guide to some of our favourite soprano roles from his operas.

Elektra is one of the most challenging parts ever written for dramatic soprano. The role requires a huge vocal range, with eight high B flats and four high Cs and also some very low-lying passages. The singer needs to be able to project above a vast orchestra: her great monologue in Scene 2 (‘Allein! Weh, ganz allein!’), her dialogue with Klytämnestra and the final scene of the opera require great power. But she also needs tenderness, in the moving recognition scene 'Orest! Orest!' in which Elektra is reunited with her brother.

The other principal female roles in the opera – Elektra’s gentler sister Chrysothemis and her murderous mother Klytämnestra – are equally challenging and rewarding.

Strauss realized he’d pushed the female voice to its dramatic limits in Elektra. In his next opera, Der Rosenkavalier, he explored the voice’s lyric potential. His heroine, the Marschallin, is one of the most complex women in opera - humorous, sensual and lively but also pensive and sensitive. Strauss wrote some wonderful music for her, including the great monologue and duet in Act I, ‘Da geht er hin’/‘Ah, du bist wieder da!’ in which the Marschallin remembers her youth, and faces up to the prospect of ageing.

Der Rosenkavalier also features two other great female roles. The innocent Sophie von Faninal is the perfect part for a young soprano with a soaring lyric voice, and the passionate Octavian is a wonderful role for high mezzo-soprano. In the final act, Strauss brings the three singers together in the most exquisite trio for female voices in opera, ‘Hab mir’s gelobt’.

Strauss’s two soprano roles in Ariadne auf Naxos are vocal and dramatic opposites. The cheerful and extrovert coquette Zerbinetta is a showstopping part for coloratura soprano, with a fiercely difficult showcase aria, ‘Grossmächtige Prinzessin!’ By contrast, Ariadne is a full lyric soprano, like the Marschallin but even more dignified. Strauss wrote Ariadne two beautiful arias expressing her longing for Theseus (‘Ein Schönes war’) and her craving for death (‘Es gibt ein Reich’). He also wrote one of his very few great duets for soprano and tenor for when Ariadne is united with the god Bacchus (‘Gibt es kein Hinüber’). Strauss had been tasked by his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal to write music that depicted Ariadne mysteriously transformed through love.

In the 1919 version of the opera (the one usually performed today) Strauss included a third great female role in the Prologue: the fiery Composer (who, like Octavian, can be sung by mezzo-soprano or soprano) has some thrilling music, particularly the aria ‘Sein wir wieder gut’, in praise of ‘holy art’.

The role of the Empress in Strauss’s epic ‘fairytale opera’ was written for Maria Jeritza, the first Ariadne. The parts have much of the same melodic beauty, but the Empress poses a greater challenge. The singer is on stage for nearly the whole opera (over three hours) and has to sing several large-scale arias (the first, ‘Ist mein Liebster dahin?’ containing coloratura and an optional high D) – and reserve enough stamina for an intense solo scene in Act III.

Strauss modelled elements of the role of Barak's Wife on his wife Pauline. The part contains intense drama, particularly in the Wife’s arguments with her husband Barak. However, Strauss’s first Wife was Lotte Lehmann, a singer renowned for vocal beauty as well as dramatic acting, and Barak's Wife must sound warm and tender in Act III, particularly in her duet with Barak ‘Mir anvertraut’. In Hofmannsthal's words, Barak's Wife is ‘a bizarre woman with a very beautiful soul’.

Countess Madeleine is an elegant, poised but playful aristocrat, similar to the Marschallin. We rarely see her lose her composure. She manages to keep the peace between her two lovers, the poet Olivier and the composer Flamand. She is affectionately teasing towards the grandiose theatre director La Roche and her stagestruck brother, and appropriately respectful to the great actress Clairon. But in her great solo scene ‘Morgen mittags um elf!’, which closes the opera, Strauss gives us an insight into her true feelings. This beautiful ten-minute scene depicts the Countess musing on the beauty of words and music combined in opera, and trying in vain to choose which of two suitors she will accept. Full of glorious melody, it is a moving swansong from Strauss to the operatic stage – and, most of all, the soprano voice he loved so much.

Ariadne auf Naxos runs 25 June–13 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is given with generous philanthropic support from Hélène and Jean Peters, Hamish and Sophie Forsyth and The Maestro’s Circle.

Writing to Strauss about Elektrain 1908, Hofmannsthal commented that ‘you may wish me to transpose the whole thing into a simpler and more lyrical key, while preserving the scenario entire, an operation such as Da Ponte carried out on the text of the comedy Le Mariage de Figaro’. Strauss later praised Hofmannsthal as being like Da Ponte and Eugène Scribe, the librettist of Robert le diableand Les Vêpres siciliennes, ‘rolled into one’. But perhaps the strongest parallel with the world of the late 18th-century Vienna and Mozart’s collaboration with Da Ponte and came from Hofmannsthal in 1911, when he suggested that Die Frau ohne Schatten would ‘stand in the same relation to Die Zauberflöte as Rosenkavalier does to Figaro’.

Their partnership spanned from Elektra (1909) to Arabella (1933). Hofmannsthal first approached Strauss in 1900 with a scenario for a ballet called Der Triumph der Zeit, but it was Strauss who instigated their working relationship proper when he asked Hofmannsthal if he could adapt the writer’s 1903 version of Sophocles’s tragedy Electrafor the operatic stage.

Before he met Strauss, Hofmannsthal was a major figure within Jung Wien, the group of intellectual radicals who dominated the culture of turn of the century Vienna. On the face of it, a partnership seemed unlikely - Hofmannsthal was scholarly and cerebral, while Strauss was theatrical and practically minded. It proved a winning combination and together the pair wrote Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Die ägyptische Helena and Arabella, as well as Hofmannsthal providing the scenario for the 1914 ballet Josephslegende and the opera Die Liebe der Danae.

As you might expect from two contrasting personalities, their relationship was frequently marked by disagreement, as detailed in their extensive correspondence. The partnership had a particularly tragic end, when Hofmannsthal died of a stroke in July 1929, two days after his son Franz had committed suicide. A telegram had arrived from Strauss in the 48-hour period between the two deaths, congratulating Hofmannsthal on his superb work on Arabella. But he neither read the missive nor saw the result of that hard work and Strauss, learning of his friend’s death, was plunged into a deep depression, which prevented him from attending the funeral. ‘No musician ever found such a helper and supporter’, Strauss wrote. ‘No one will ever replace him for me or the world of music!’.

2014 sees the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss’s birth. The composer is celebrated at the ROH with stagings of Die Frau ohne Schatten (until 2 April) and Ariadne auf Naxos (25 June-13 July). Tickets for both are still available.

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) displayed great gifts as a composer for voice early in his career, writing exquisite songs from the early 1880s. However, until 1894 his larger-scale works were primarily orchestral tone poems, such as Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung (both 1889). Strauss began work on his first opera, Guntram, in 1887. The opera had its premiere in 1894 in Weimar, on the same day that Strauss announced his engagement to the soprano Pauline de Ahna, who sang the role of Freihild.Guntram showed the influence of the music dramas of Wagner and the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. It was not a success, and Strauss’s second opera, the satirical Feuersnot (1901), also had a lukewarm reception, largely because of the sheer difficulty of the music.

Strauss's next work, Salome (1905), was a great succès de scandale. The opera’s colourful orchestration, bold and arresting narrative and chromatic harmonic language led Strauss to be hailed as a new modernist voice in opera, while the opera’s heroine was seen as an archetypal femme fatale. Although Salome was banned or censored by several opera companies, it remained popular with audiences and Strauss’s fortune was made. Strauss was even more daring in his next opera, Elektra (1909): he employed a huge orchestra and composed immensely demanding music for the three principal female characters. The first Klytämnestra, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, declared ‘there is nothing beyond Elektra’.

Elektramarked the beginning of Strauss’s fruitful collaboration with the Austrian playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal. For their next work they left the angst-ridden world of Greek tragedy and turned to Rococo Vienna. Der Rosenkavalier (1911) explores the love triangle between the ageing but still beautiful Marschallin, the young nobleman Octavian (the ‘Rosenkavalier’), and the beautiful adolescent Sophie von Faninal. There is also plenty of comedy, as Octavian outwits Sophie’s boorish suitor Baron Ochs. Strauss chose a broadly diatonic language for Der Rosenkavalier, employing characteristically ‘pictorial’ orchestral effects, and also made witty use of that most Viennese of dances, the waltz. The writing for the three principal female roles is far more lyrical than in Elektra, above all in the Act III trio ‘Hab’ mir’s gelobt’, when the voices combine to sublime effect.

Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s next collaboration was a theatrical hybrid. Ariadne auf Naxos (first version, 1912) combined Hofmannsthal’s version of Molière’s play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme with an opera about the Greek heroine Ariadne, staged simultaneously with a humorous performance by a commedia dell’arte troupe. Ariadne had a mixed reception, as audiences were uncertain whether they were watching a play or an opera. In 1916 Strauss and Hofmannsthal revised the work as a full-scale opera, replacing the Molière material with an operatic Prologue. Strauss further developed the lyricism and vocal beauty he had explored in Der Rosenkavalier, particularly in the writing for Ariadne and Bacchus. He also experimented with smaller orchestral forces (a 36-piece chamber orchestra), and had fun creating the acrobatic coloratura role of Zerbinetta.

Strauss termed his next opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919) ‘the last Romantic opera’. He intended it to be similar in tone to Die Zauberflöte, with the story of two couples, one too high-minded and one too earthbound, who learn the meaning of love. Hofmannsthal’s libretto is one of his most symbolic and complex, though the poet showed a lighter side when he modelled the character of the Dyer’s Wife on Strauss’s volatile wife Pauline. Die Frau ohne Schatten is a major undertaking for any opera house, with its massive orchestra, unusual length and extremely difficult principal roles – but it contains some of Strauss’s loveliest music, particularly for the Empress and Barak the Dyer.

After the premiere of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Strauss announced to Hofmannsthal his plan to write a ‘modern domestic comedy’. Hofmannsthal refused to collaborate, so Strauss wrote his own libretto, based on an incident in his marriage. Intermezzo (1924) is less vocally lyrical than Strauss’s previous three operas; instead, much of the vocal writing resembles a ‘sung play’, with the melodic beauty reserved for a series of orchestral interludes and for the final reconciliation scene.

Strauss and Hofmannsthal resumed their collaboration with Die ägyptische Helena (first performed in 1928), about the adventures of Helen of Troy after the Trojan War. The opera contains some lovely music, including Helena’s Act II aria, but a convoluted and at times somewhat clumsy plot, coupled with one of Strauss’s famous ‘killer’ tenor roles for the Spartan King Menelaus, have prevented the work gaining a firm foothold in repertory. Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s last collaboration, Arabella (1933), had the same Viennese setting as Der Rosenkavalier (though now in the 19th century). Strauss’s love of operetta is clear in the score, which shares much of the lyricism of Rosenkavalier – and has an even more complicated plot. Arabella is Strauss’s best-loved stage work from the 1920s and 30s and contains some exquisite music; particularly beautiful is the duet for Arabella and her sister in Act I (‘Aber der Richtige’) and the Act II duet for Arabella and Mandryka, ‘Und du wirst mein Gebieter sein’, based on a Croatian folk tune.

After Hofmannsthal's untimely death in 1929 Strauss struggled to find a new collaborator. He thought he’d found one in Stefan Zweig, another Viennese writer, with whom he created the witty comic opera Die schweigsame Frau (1935) – but Hitler’s rise to power prompted the Jewish Zweig to leave Europe, and the opera was subsequently banned by the Nazis. Strauss began another partnership with the historian Joseph Gregor, which he found somewhat frustrating. The Nazis banned their first collaboration, the Fidelio-like one-act Friedenstag (1938), due to its pacifist sentiments, and Strauss complained much about Gregor’s ‘schoolmasterly banalities’ in Daphne (1938) and Die Liebe der Danae (completed 1940, dress rehearsal 1944 for a performance cancelled by Goebbels and finally first performed in 1952). However, both operas contain beautiful and very moving music, such as the heroine’s metamorphosis into a laurel at the end of Daphne, and Jupiter’s farewell to earthly love and his beloved Danae in Die Liebe der Danae.

Strauss believed that Die Liebe der Danae would be his last opera. In fact, in 1939 he and the conductor Clemens Krauss began work on Capriccio, a ‘conversation piece in one act’ set in Paris in 1775. Capriccio addresses the question of which in opera is more important: words or music. Strauss wrote the music, Krauss (with much input by Strauss) the libretto. The premiere, in war-torn Munich in 1942, was a great success. With a sparkling score that contains glorious melodies, witty pastiches of 18th-century dance and opera seriaand a host of vivid characters – including Countess Madeleine, one of Strauss’s greatest soprano roles – Capriccio is a fitting close to the career of one of the greatest opera composers of the 20th century.

Over the past few decades, opera has reinvented itself, emphasizing the theatrical side of the art form where previously the music was perhaps the main focus. Increasingly, many directors have reinterpreted classic works in highly dramatic, sometimes explicit terms, leading some audience members to complain of shock tactics such as an emphasis on themes of sex and violence.

Such themes have in fact long featured in opera narratives as well as productions. Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643), one of the earliest operatic masterpieces, tells the story of the tyrannical and passionate Roman emperor Nero and his corrupt mistress Poppea who seduces her way to power with deadly consequences for those who cross her.

But have directors overstepped the mark in portraying such narratives with an explicit focus on their sexual or violent content? Ahead of Royal Opera productions of Wozzeck and Les Vêpres siciliennes, and following recent stagings of Written on Skin, The Wasp Factory and Elektra, let us know what you think using the comment field below:

Do you think that modern opera productions rely too much on sex and violence, or are such themes an inherent part of the art form, key to the theatrical experience?

Telling the violent story of a daughter desperately obsessed with avenging her father’s murder, Richard Strauss’s Elektra is famously intense with a complex and challenging score. We spent time with Andris Nelsons in rehearsal with The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and he told us about the rewards and challenges of working on the opera.

‘For conductors who love Strauss, this is one of the most exciting operas you can conduct,’ says Andris. ‘Starting from the extremely soft, intimate moments when the soloists can whisper, to the explosions when you think your ears will explode... Elektra is a special, extraordinary piece.’

The opera’s score features the ‘Agamemnon motif’ throughout, a powerful musical idea that vividly portrays the anguish of a feuding family and re-enforces the themes of obsession and revenge. Find out more about the Agamemnon motif.